NBA superstars Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson were both named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday. Nuggets coach Michael Malone has a connection to O’Neal — he coached the big man in Cleveland during the 2009-10 season, the penultimate season of Shaq’s career.

As for Iverson, Malone coached against the mighty-mite in the NBA and in college. Malone was an assistant at Providence the same time Iverson played for legend John Thompson at Georgetown.

“Shaq and Allen Iverson are two very, very impactful players,” Malone said. “Well-deserved honor for those guys.”

He was asked what it was like to be around the big ball of fun named Shaq on a daily basis. Read more…

Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari drives against Sacramento forward Quincy Acy during a game against the Kings on Feb. 19. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The fact that former Nuggets coach George Karl was in town on Saturday night at the Pepsi Center was pure coincidence.

That morning, Danilo Gallinari, one of Karl’s old players, expressed a return to an old frame of mind, when playoffs were a given and championships were the vision. This has been a frustrating season for Gallinari, the Nuggets’ veteran leader who is out for the season with a badly injured right ankle.

He gave some of his most candid comments about his view of the state of the team.

“In the beginning of the season I wanted to go to the playoffs,” Gallinari said. “I thought we had the chance to do it, that we had the team to do it. So, mission not accomplished. That’s the negative part. Honestly, maybe there are some positives for sure, but for me after all I’ve been through in Denver, going to the playoffs every year and fighting for something every year, to not be able to do that this season was very frustrating for me.” Read more…

Danilo Gallinari backs down Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan in a game earlier this season. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Though he continues to make good progress on a badly injured right ankle, Danilo Gallinari said he will not play another game for the Nuggets this season.

“No,” he said after the team’s shootaround on Saturday morning.

So, he’s done?

“Yes,” he said.

He’s recovering from two torn lateral ligaments in the ankle — the anterior talofibular and calcaneofibular — and has a sprained deltoid ligament as well. Gallinari will end this season missing the final 23 games of it. Read more…

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic goes up to block L.A. Clippers guard Austin Rivers’shot in a game on March 27. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic will not play on Wednesday night against Memphis, the second straight game he’s missed due to illness, but overall he’s having exactly the kind of finish he desperately needed to have in what has been a rollercoaster season.

In his last seven games, Nurkic has averaged 12.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 steals per game. So, yes, he’s filling up the stat sheet. Perhaps most importantly is Nurkic’s shooting percentage of 55.6, which is much more in line with what post players should be shooting. Read more…

Unprovoked, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle let loose on the admiration he’s had for the job new Nuggets coach Michael Malone has done in his first season in Denver. He made these comments prior to the game on Monday night at the Pepsi Center.

“This is a very good young team, and one of the real underrated coaching jobs in our league is happening here with Mike Malone,” Carlisle said. “He’s taken a bunch of guys that were viewed as role players and gotten these guys into a system where they are having some success. They are extremely difficult to play. They’re stats are very consistent. And going forward, they are in a very strong position here.”

The Nuggets entered the game with 31 wins, eclipsing last season’s total.

Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com

LOS ANGELES — Prior to Friday night’s game at the Staples Center, the Lakers radio feed was being piped into the visitor’s locker room, which, that night, was the Nuggets locker room. During the broadcast they explained away the Nuggets’ win over Philadelphia on Wednesday as blah between two teams “going nowhere.”

That caught the ears of Nuggets coach Michael Malone, perked them up, and became a phrase that further motivated the already always-motivated Malone to want to get the win over the Lakers even more.

“Going nowhere?” Malone said. “No, we’re improving.”

Then his team, now 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference, went out and trounced the 15-win Lakers, 116-105. Read more…

The duo of young bigs, Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic, is on the shortlist of combinations hardcore Nuggets observers want to see most on the court together.

Yet, if there is a combination Nuggets coach Michael Malone isn’t breaking his back to re-jigger the lineup to see, it’s the combination of Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic on the court together. Until Monday night, the two had seen all of four minutes of shared court time this season.

But a Bigfoot sighting happened in the Nuggets’ loss to the Cavaliers on Monday. Nurkic and Jokic played. On the court. Together. It lasted seven minutes, and, well, it had its good and bad aspects. Read more…

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic battles for the ball with Celtics guard Evan Turner in a game earlier this season. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic knows the time for voicing concern and frustration has passed. At least for the time being. Right now, he know he’s got to take advantage of the opportunities he’s given.

“I’m feeling good,” Nurkic said. “I just want to finish the last 13, 14 games of the season and we’ll see what happens. Just be a pro, and that’s it.”

In the last two games, Nurkic has been back on the court. And he’s played well with averages of 10 points, five rebounds, one block and one steal in those games while shooting 40 percent from the field. Of most importance to coach Michael Malone is the team has been in positive territory when the second-year center has been on the court. Never is that better illustrated than in the team’s defensive rating in the 52 minutes he’s been off the court in those games (121.6) as opposed to the 44 minutes he’s been on the court (92.7) — nearly a 30-point difference per 100 possessions.

And for a Nuggets team that is in continual search of a consistent defense-first identity, those numbers are hard to ignore. Read more…

Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried was out of the game at Atlanta with a sore back. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

ATLANTA — The Nuggets will tread very lightly with Kenneth Faried as the season winds to its end.

Faried will not play against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night due to a sore back. And Nuggets coach Michael Malone isn’t going to take any chances on the health of his high-energy forward in the games ahead.

“Sometimes I feel that I may have to protect him from himself,” Malone said. “I think he wants to be out there, but, you know what? We have 14 games to go, we know what Kenneth is about, we know the high level he’s capable of playing.” Read more…

Almost all of them are A) playing well and B) getting important minutes on their teams in doing so.

“I think it’s probably the best class since 2003 with LeBron and them,” Mudiay said. “I think we got that type of talent. I think the more we keep working — hopefully no one gets too Hollywood or anything like that. Everybody keeps working and we could have a real special class.” Read more…

Nuggets guards Gary Harris, left, and Emmanuel Mudiay cheer with teammates from the bench late in the Nuggets game against Washington last Saturday. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

MIAMI — Because you’re still wondering.

And others of you, you’re still hoping.

This is the final word: What you’ve seen of the Nuggets in March, where they’ve started 5-1 and run through many of the opponents in doing it, is exactly what coach Michael Malone envisions as Nuggets basketball.

Final answer.

The numbers this month going into Monday night’s game at Miami are these: 115.8 points per game, 47 percent shooting from the field, 36.5 percent from the 3-point line and nearly 80 percent from the free throw line. But more importantly to Malone is how they’re getting to those numbers. The Nuggets explosive offensive stats start with his no-negotiation fundamental:

MIAMI — The injuries keep on coming for an already beat-up Nuggets team.

This time, the two players in question are both big men, centers Jusuf Nurkic and Joffrey Lauvergne. Nuggets coach Michael Malone called the pair game-time decisions for Monday night’s game at Miami.

“Right now I’m a little worried about our injuries,” said Malone after Nuggets shootaround. “Can Joffrey play tonight with his face? Can Nurkic play with his knee? We could be a depleted team tonight, but that’s been the case all year and I’m sure other guys will step up.” Read more…

From time-to-time when the subject of the end of the season comes up, Nuggets coach Michael Malone grins and slips in a one-liner about finishing strong and then getting ready to face Golden State in the first round of the playoffs.

Yuks all around.

But maybe he should be taken a little more seriously?

The Nuggets have not been eliminated from the playoff race. Far from it, actually, and shhhh… they’re quietly within striking distance of the eighth spot, just five games out. Not only that, but going into Sunday’s games the Nuggets are 10th in the conference at 28-38, so there aren’t a bunch of teams separating them from the seventh and eighth spots. Only Utah. Read more…

Nuggets coach Michael Malone said he’s going to make getting second-year center Nurkic on the court a priority as the season winds down.

That started with a short stint on Friday against Phoenix.

“It was great to get Nurk in last game, even though he only played four and a half minutes,” Malone said. “But he came in, he was ready to play, he’s been working his butt off, he’s had a great attitude. And he went out there and impacted the game in a very positive manner. So, my goal in these last 17 games is to find a way to get Nurkic a lot more time. That’s my challenge.” Read more…

Nuggets head coach Michael Malone lifts 8-year old Gertie Munholland after his team’s victory on Thursday night. Munholland, a Special Olympics athlete, was a guest of the team for its game against Phoenix. (Photo by Garrett W. Ellwood/NBA Photos)

Michael Malone’s usual order of business after a game is usually a beeline off the court and back to the locker room to address the team. Sometimes a wave to the opposing coach breaks up the routine.

But on Thursday night, after the Nuggets’ win over Phoenix, Malone’s sprint wasn’t to the locker room. This time it was to give a hug to a very special guest sitting courtside, who had been soaking up every bit of the night with the widest smile of anyone in the Pepsi Center.

The day could not have been any closer to a dream come true for Gertie-Leigh Munholland, a special 8-year old girl with Down syndrome. Thursday started with shootaround. She helped Nuggets head strength coach Steve Hess stretch out the athletes. They broke the final huddle “1, 2, 3, Gertie!” Pictures and so many more smiles were on tap as the players made their way to the locker room afterward. Read more…

It has to be. After injuries and trades, there’s virtually nothing else left.

But Nuggets coach Michael Malone is taking nothing for granted, as his team faces the 17-win Suns on Thursday night at the Pepsi Center. He’s got a list of what the Nuggets need to do — and who they need to stop — in order to win their fourth game of this homestand. Read more…

New York Knicks guard Jose Calderon congratulates Carmelo Anthony after he scored a basket and drew a foul during the second half of the team’s NBA game against the Nuggets on Tuesday.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Carmelo Anthony professed not to hear the scattered boos that greeted him when he touched the ball at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night. Or, at least he heard them but was convinced they were for the team in general.

So he might have been a bit in denial.

But he is not feeling the hate the same way he did in the first few years following his trade out of Denver to New York.

“I think all of that is gone,” Anthony said. “The fans that was here when I was here, they understand the situation. There’s no love lost from me to them. The real fans that was here, I don’t think there was any love lost from them either with me.” Read more…

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.